SERIAL KILLER PROJECT: H.H. HOLMES

Comments (0)

Transcript of SERIAL KILLER PROJECT: H.H. HOLMES

It was in a city near Chicago called Englewood where Holmes met the old and fatally ill owner of a drugstore, beginning to work there at the aid of the owner's desperate wife. Eventually left with a widow (and many new adoring fans), the woman "mysteriously disappeared". No one found it strange when Holmes immediately moved into the upstairs of the drugstore. Subsequently, he married bigamously to a woman named Marta, whom he had met on a business trip in Minneapolis. Ultimately, she left him due to "wandering eyes", but he supported her from a distance when she found she was pregnant.H. H. HOLMES: a history(?) H. H. Holmes, born Henry Webster Mudgett (May 16, 1861) in Gilmanton, NH, was considered an extremely bright child. With no childhood problems documented, it's difficult to determine why Henry's future took a murderous turn. Having graduated from high school at the early age of 16 (1877), he had grown into a charming and intelligent young man, marrying his first wife Clara two years later (1879 at the age of 18). Sources are unclear of whether or not they had children together. Clara, being the daughter of a wealthy family from NH, helped to fund his education after they moved to MI. He attended medical school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he would mutilate the corpses they would study, pass them off as accidents, and collect the insurance money. This was a common "hobby" throughout his college years, and once he was finished, he sent Clara back to NH without explanation (or divorce) before making his way towards IL under the alias of Henry Howard Holmes.SERIAL KILLER PROJECT: H.H. HOLMESby madison flandersHolmes was never diagnosed with amental disorder while he was alive, though many today consider AntisocialPersonality Disorder because of hisdeceiving charm and nonexistent regret. If I were a therapist, I would most likely use the cognitive approach, putting main focus on what means he used to solve certain problems and how he thought/perceived specific situations. Holmes VS. DisorderIt was a matter oftime before Holmes purchasedthe drugstore he'd been living in, adding onto it until it became a large hotel to the public. The building had four floors total: the first and third, where the drugstore remained and he continued business, along with a few rooms open to the public (mainly bedrooms, shops, and lobbies), and the second floor and basement designed entirely for torturous purposes, where Holmes would murder his guests by means of the hotel and reduce them to skeletons, which he would sell to medical schools.second floor & basement included:trap doorsasphyxiation chambersiron platesblowtorchesdissecting tablescrematoriesacid vats and quicklime pitsalarmsIt is estimated that holmes's crimes ran from 1886-1894and despite only confessing to 27 murders it is rumored that holmes had over200 victims.The hotel had over 60 rooms and all construction workers were hired quickly before being fired without pay, to avoid suspicion for the strange architecture. Holmes began working on the hotel in 1889 and construction continued even as it was open to the public (most notably in 1893 during the Chicago World Fair). The building was burned down in 1938 by order of the state, despite there being a mysterious fire when Holmes was imprisoned as well, revealing the horrendous rooms within to the police.Holmes's trial was in 1895, where he confessed to 27 murders. To thisday, it is still said that hisnumber of victims is closer to a couple hundred. Holmes was executed by hanging at Moyamensing prison in PA on May 7,1896, where he struggled on therope for 15 minutes beforeHolmes was jailed for insurance fraud and (initially) the murder of Benjamin Pitezel and his family in 1894, before police ended up discovering much more about the hotel. His behavior was erratic and he attempted to make the situation much less than what it really was. Holmes's victims were mainly women, though men and children were undoubtedly victims as well.ultimately choking to death.mugshot from 1895Today, nothing is left from Holmes's infamous "murder castle" except for a post office built right next to its foundation. Despite being a different building, it is able to lead straight to what used to be the castle's basement.sourceshttp://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/holmes.htmhttp://harpers.org/archive/1943/12/the-master-of-the-murder-castle/http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/holmes/holmeslinks.htmlhttp://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/haunted_places/4.htmlhttp://www.mysteriouschicagoblog.com/2008/10/murder-castle-today-or-good-grief-more.html?m=1Despite having been caught and executed, there is a riveting theory that Holmes (a murderously tactical doctor) and Jack the Ripper (who would kill his victims by removing their internal organs, suggesting a fair amount of surgical training) could possibly be the same man.The notorious London killer began his terrorism around the time when H.H. Holmes was never seen nor accounted for in the United States, and when Jack's killing ceased, was when Holmes's began. It can also be noted that their handwriting shares a 98% similarity, according to a computer program owned by the FBI. These parallels paired with their similar murder styles suggest that they could indeed be the same person. This theory has been elaborated on by the Chicago Tribune and even Holmes's great-great-grandson, Jeff Mudgett.http://guardianlv.com/2013/10/chicago-doctor-h-h-holmes-was-jack-the-ripper/